Patrick looks at the news for the last 2 weeks, including Update 39 Patch 1, and then is joined by Sahba and Mythery from the Damsels of DDO with some ideas for surviving Gencon…if you are the one left at home! Okay, some of these ideas are terrible. Being at Gencon sounds like way more […]

News:
Lots of hotfixes to classes, creatures, professions, raids, dungeons and quests - almost daily since prepatch
Hotfix to experience: experience required to level has been lowered for all levels 40-100. Reduction averages 14% between 60-80, with smaller reductions at other levels.
Quest log bug -
“Due to an issue, during a short time between 1st of August, 09:30 pm and 2nd of August 01:45 am players would get all their quest log abandoned when using a teleportation ability, such as hearthstone or mage portal. This issue is fixed by now, and we will try to assist you with recovering your quest progress.

If you lost a progress of a quest, that can be completed during single play session, please, proceed by restarting this quest.

If you were impacted by this issue and you lost a progress of a multistep quest, that takes several days to complete or a quest that you are not able to pick up anymore, we will try to recover the progress. Please, note, that we do not guarantee to recover progress as it was before the loss, but we will do our best.”

Welcome to DDOCaSplat! We are static group on Khyber that likes to challenge ourselves a little bit. We die often and we talk about a lot of random things. Watch us live most Tuesdays at 530p pacific time on twitch.tv/ddocast Follow us on Twitter! Patrick: @ddocast Don’t forget to watch DDOCast’s weekly DDO news and […]

Welcome to DDOCaSplat! We are static group on Khyber that likes to challenge ourselves a little bit. We die often and we talk about a lot of random things. Watch us live most Tuesdays at 530p pacific time on twitch.tv/ddocast Follow us on Twitter! Patrick: @ddocast Don’t forget to watch DDOCast’s weekly DDO news and […]

We look at the release of Update 39: White Plume Mountain and Other Tales with our guest Asheras then we rap up our discussion on Slayer areas with Evilbeeker! Have thoughts on this show, ideas for round table topics, questions you’d like us to answer, or topics you’d like to see us debate? Leave us […]

We take a look at Update 39’s 2nd preview on Lammania with our guests Evennote & Axel this week! Evilbeeker also returns for part 3 of our discussion on Slayer Areas! Have thoughts on this show, ideas for round table topics, questions you’d like us to answer, or topics you’d like to see us debate? […]

This week we continue our Slayer Area discussion with Evilbeeker! Have thoughts on this show, ideas for round table topics, questions you’d like us to answer, or topics you’d like to see us debate? Leave us a comment, send us an email (ddocast@gmail.com) or give us a tweet (@ddocast)! Check out www.ddocast.com for mp3 audio, […]

This week we kick off a new discussion topic on Slayer Areas with our guest Evilbeeker! Have thoughts on this show, ideas for round table topics, questions you’d like us to answer, or topics you’d like to see us debate? Leave us a comment, send us an email (ddocast@gmail.com) or give us a tweet (@ddocast)! […]

Ren
Cocktail of the Cast: Julep Zecca Italiana
About 80% through the “Home Flooring Renovation” achievement
Completed the new pre-expansion quest line on paladin - upgraded artifact from 75 to 126
Purchased a small one-handed gaming keyboard from DeLux - $30. Taking some time to get used to but may be easier to use than full sized keyboard when I’m one handed.
Only real problem is maneuvering while flying
Other issue: no English instructions came with it

Mike
I made a thing.
I thought I needed things from Midsummer - nope.
Did the artifact thing
Poop quest :P
Still need to do the mage tower

News
Pre-expansion artifact quest in Silithus went live this week
Achievement: Crucible’s Promise - upgrades your artifact from 75 to 126
Several of the Silithus quests are NOT REQUIRED to complete this (but you can’t skip the trips to Stormwind or Orgrimmar)
Only the quests directly from Nolan Speed (Alliance) and Grol Warblade (Horde) are required to complete the quest line
First Horde quest: motivate peons; first Alliance quest, collect Mysterious Ore by killing goblins. Horde quest turns in to Grol. Alliance has turn-in for Mysterious Ore going to a dwarf, but then return to Nolan Speed to pick the line back up.
From this point on, the main line is identical, Horde or Alliance.
Pick up “The Twilight Survivor” from Nolan or Grol. Ignore “Desert Research” because it’s just a breadcrumb to an unnecessary gnome or goblin line.
Pick up “A Recent Arrival” to talk to Khadgar, and this leads to the end.
You can skip ALL the gnome quests (Alliance) and goblin quests (Horde) and the outhouse quest and it does not affect progress. These extras provide color and 18g but no rep or other rewards
Confirmed upgraded ALL owned weapon artifacts, whether they are on you or in the bank
When you have completed this quest, if you complete any other weapon quests, these fully upgrade as soon as you shift into that specialization
Underlight Angler graphics do what the regular artifacts do and it shows TRILLIONS of AP, but doesn’t actually upgrade the Angler (AP yellow bar still shows proper amount of points. Display bug)
Reportedly making the Mage Tower much easier to complete and sudden uptick in new guilds finishing Mythi and Cutting Edge Argus the Unmaker achievements.
Mage Tower is now live 24/7

Forbes Interviews with Ion Hazzikostas
Change in BFA: Prevent players from swapping gear in high difficulty Mythic+ dungeons - make it consistent with not changing talents mid-encounter. Mythic+ now requires complete speccing (talents AND gear) for the entire dungeon, which Blizzard now views as a single encounter.
New Azerite armor
Can’t be warforged or titanforged
Only source that can be run repeatedly is normal or heroic dungeons
Can be gained as a world quest emissary reward, but not from world quests themselves
Can get as a weekly PvP or conquest reward, but not at the end of a match
Mythic dungeons - not from box at the end, but only from the weekly reward box
Clear tiers of Azerite armor
Communities
Will not be cross faction (“we’re at war!”]
Yay Discord!
Confirmed the following are all going away in the prepatch:
First Aid achievements
Ahead of the Curve and Cutting Edge achievements
Violet Spellwing mount quest from killing Argus.
Guaranteed mount drops from mythic Argus and Gul’dan in The Nighthold will become rare drops
The Chosen title (killing bosses in mythic Trial of Valor without dying)
Brawler’s Guild seasonal achievements
Legion Elite PvP armor sets, achievements related to the Ashran battlefield and several other Legion specific PvP achievements
Mentioned Fisherfriends of the Isles isn’t going away but will be a lot easier to achieve now that there are huge groups doing it
Professions
Professions system is “changing dramatically”
Each expansion will have its own separate skill tier level
Analogy: Pandaria cooking
If you have 800 skill in a profession, you’ll be at 100 skill level in each expansion’s profession tier, and will start BFA as level 1 for BFA crafting.
If you have 650, for example, you will have 100 through Pandaria, then 50 for Warlords, and no Legion
Also means is that if all you want to do is craft items for Battle of Azeroth, there’s nothing you have to do - you do not need to get your profession to 800 - there is no advantage because all 800 profession skill level means now is that you will have 100 level in all expansion tiers short of BFA. Everyone will start at level 1 for BFA crafting and gathering.
Question: how is racial profession bonus going to figure into this?
Also means if you want to change professions, it’s a great time to do it.
Ian’s advice: professions “extremely optional” to level up - “don’t worry about anything other than the Mage Tower”.
No specific events planned for prepatch that will boost levels the way the Legion invasions did
BFA kinder to alts?
Only things specifically mentioned:
artifact necklace will work for all specs - no having to develop separate necklaces for tanking, DPS and healing
No class legendaries

Draculetta from DDO Players News joins us for a coproduction show this week along with Arkat as we take a look at Update 39 Preview 1 on Lammania! Have thoughts on this show, ideas for round table topics, questions you’d like us to answer, or topics you’d like to see us debate? Leave us a […]

Welcome to DDOCaSplat! We are static group on Khyber that likes to challenge ourselves a little bit. We die often and we talk about a lot of random things. Watch us live most Tuesdays at 530p pacific time on twitch.tv/ddocast Follow us on Twitter! Patrick: @ddocast Don’t forget to watch DDOCast’s weekly DDO news and […]

Asheras joins us to look at the news this week including updates to the Beacon of Hope Favored Soul enhancement tree! Then we look at pt 3 of our Leveling 30+ guide! Have thoughts on this show, ideas for round table topics, questions you’d like us to answer, or topics you’d like to see us […]

Had to start over
Was able to go through the initial scenario, but the key cutscenes are placeholders.
“Cool cutscene”
Ali went through horde starting scenario, followed by amazing Escape from Stockades scenario.
Both Horde and Alliance zones are gorgeous!

Professions are sort of in
You can train, but no vendor for BfA tradeskill mats. Old school tradeskill mats vendor is there.
Fishing trainer added this week, only trains up to Pandaria fishing (Ali fished up Midnight Salmon)
Herbalism: herbs are not just in the ground. Star Moss grows on walls, Siren’s song grows out of trees...refreshing change

Mike
Making up the money I spent on the T3 chestpiece.
Problem - Vial of the Sands sells for garbage on my server (69,000g)
No mounts this week
Started going through ALL my screenshots. 103GB of them.
Sorted by expansion
May split them between characters.
Found out that I was leveling TWO mages at the same time on two servers.
Apparently I was on Aggramar and don’t remember why.
I also moved toons around a lot and don’t remember why.

Ali
Still trying for Invincible….Arthas is a bitch
Raid is working on trying to get Ahead of the Curve achievement together. Heroic Coven is a struggle. Going to get lockouts-Skipping it to work on Aggramar and Argus.
Halfway through Field Medic (got some repeat quest drops)
Really starting to focus on my N&A toon
Ren called for June 1st to official deadline. Can still work on it and complete it but after deadline, finishers won’t be announced on the show. Summer gets busy. Maybe a new challenge at some point? Never know with Ren!
My N&A toon is almost 65, determined to get it done in time
Ren spoke again about starting a Warcast guild on Silvermoon-US. Alliance side? We’ve been discussing different names on discord!

News:
Blizzcon tickets went on sale
Several people helping others to get tickets.
Both waves of tickets are over.
Don’t buy scalped tickets. Better to see if anyone has any extras.
GCD is a Big Thing™
Racials will be removed from the GCD
http://www.wowhead.com/news=283908/comprehensive-list-of-abilities-added-to-the-gcd-in-battle-for-azeroth#mage
Mage:
Time Warp
Charged Up (Arcane)
Arcane power (Arcane)
Spring Balloon Fest going on now until tomorrow
War Mode available.
Have not tested it yet
I might test it just to see how it goes, but will not be a permanent change for me.

Talking weapons transmog will still talk?

Don’t DDoS Blizzard
Romanian man extradited and sentenced to one year for DDoS in 2010
Also has to pay almost $30k

Ren
Finished Fisherfriend of the Isles
ALMOST finished Lucid Nightmare
Got into Beta, but no time to do anything about it
On Sylvanus server, copied my Horde paladin Krystoff onto it and created a Warcast channel

Mike
Nothing
Well, did some beta w/Ali but basically covered the same ground as pre-reset.
Guild moving to horde

8.0 prepatch live on the PTR
Players gain access to a multitude of features and system updates in the pre-patch, including Communities, War Mode, the new Honor System, overhauled Professions, and Legion's final storyline leading up to Burning of Teldrassil and the Battle for Lordaeron.
Artifacts will be disabled when the pre-patch goes live. Player power will be buffed to compensate for the power loss.
Class Changes
A stat/item squish
Legendaries won't work past level 115.
Retired artifacts lose all their traits and become normal weapons, with stats scaling with relics installed in the artifact weapon. The main artifact effect of each spec's weapons is becoming a talent instead, as are several class specific legendaries.
Underlight Angler was originally showing as disabled, but the latest build fixed it.

WoW Classic
Will start with 1.12 Drums of War: Features introduced in 1.12 included:
Cross realm battlegrounds (Alterac Valley, Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin)
World PvP
Some of the past things from previous patches that will be included as a result:
Ruins and Temple of Ahn'Qiraj - so this will be after opening those
Blackwing Lair
Darkmoon Faire
Raid dungeon timers, calendars and lockouts
The high level class dungeon armor sets
Weather
Quest experience for gold at level 60
Final destination flight paths
Linked auction houses
Some world holidays
Soul shard bags (!!!)
Expected issues with the first prototype
didn't recognize current video cards and was incompatible with the current login/authentication server (authenticator became available 2 Jun 2008, almost 2 years after 1.12's release on 22 August 2006)
Does not support modern security and anti-cheating capabilities
Second prototype: instead of going forward with old code, work backward: take the modern back-end code and use it to process Patch 1.12 game data
Start with modern architecture, security and stability - catalogue any differences in behavior between the development build and the Patch 1.12 reference build
Three types of game data:
Table data: numbers - hit points, stats, spawn timers, etc.
File data: dense data such as 3d models, textures, animations, terrain, user interface, and art models (don't use the same file formats as commercial art tools - no jpgs, tifs, etc.
Lua scrips: custom behaviors for server side logic without needing engineering knowledge
Engineering challenges
All classic data is in original form since launch, but format has changed substantially over the year. Modern client is not compatible with old data.
Master data problem: from single line on a master table to multiple linked tables catalogued by ID number
much richer environment but not compatible with the single line system
For example, spells could only apply up to three actions on a target in classic
In current form, spells no longer limited to three effects and are formatted differently
Almost all other data such as items, characters, creatures, NPCs, AI, spawning and more) have had their database formats changed

Strimtom joins us for a first look at the new Favored Soul enhancement tree Beacon of Hope as well as the rest of this week’s news! Then we have part 2 of our Leveling 30+ discussion with Asheras! Have thoughts on this show, ideas for round table topics, questions you’d like us to answer, or […]